Most data breaches can be blamed on negligent employees failing to keep sensitive corporate data secure, according to a recent report from research firm Forrester. At the 7,000 organizations surveyed, just 25% of the data breaches they’d experienced were blamed on external attacks.

The remaining 75% were caused by employees and other insiders – and most often due to their negligence or failure to follow policies. The most common causes of those data breaches were:

Laptops, smartphones or other computing devices lost by employees (31%)

Inadvertent misuse of sensitive information (27%), and

Intentional theft of data by employees (12%)

As those numbers show, IT pros could prevent many data breaches by directing more attention to finding and eliminating the threats that exist in the company’s own workforce. Here are the most common types of insider threats to watch out for – and what IT can do about them:

1. Negligent employees

As Forrester’s report shows, negligent employees are the most common security threat IT departments face. Often, data is leaked because those people fail to follow IT’s security policies. And the threat is only becoming more common because employees are carrying more information around on mobile devices.

Requiring those devices to be equipped with encryption and other security tools is key to keeping data locked down. Also, IT should be careful to only give employees as much access to data as they need to do their jobs.

2. Malicious insiders

Insiders who knowingly steal data or cause other problems may not be as common as negligent employees, but they can do a lot of damage. Malicious insiders might steal confidential information to sell to competitors, use financial data to commit fraud, or carry out other costly crimes.

IT staff should work with other departments to determine who has access to a lot of sensitive data. That way, those department managers can make sure they’re conducting background checks accordingly. And again, keeping access privileges to a minimum is key for lowering the risk.

3. Ex-employees

IT must also protect against recently terminated employees that could still have access to data. Those people may include fired workers who sabotage networks or data for revenge, or an employee who took a job at a competitor and steals trade secrets to take with them.

To prevent that, IT should be in communication with HR to know when employees leave the company so their access rights can be terminated immediately.

4. IT staffers

IT managers don’t just need to worry about the potential security risks lurking in other parts of the company – there’s also a chance the IT department may have insider threats of its own. Tech staffers often have access to the most data in the company. And in fact, 20% of IT pros have admitted to snooping on sensitive data, including the CEO’s private information.

That’s why IT managers should conduct thorough background checks on their own hires and watch out for suspicious behavior from their direct reports.

5. Business partners

In addition to their own employees, companies must be careful about the employees of any cloud computing provider or other business partner they work with. Those people are out of the organization’s watch, yet often have significant access to the company’s data.

When contracting with a third party, companies should ask about the vendor’s security policies and background check protocol to make sure the proper standards are in place.

I’m captive to the whiteboard. So many of my work conversations require on-the-spot diagrams and quickly jotted notes that it’s sometimes impossible to talk without one. Despite all of humanity’s technological wonders, whiteboards show that our ancestors had something right when they planned hunts using sticks to draw lines in the dirt.

Naturally, I often need to capture what’s on a whiteboard before someone erases it. If you do the same, here’s a tip for how you can use Mozy to capture the whiteboard artifacts of your conversation and open them up on your computer.

Get out your mobile phone and snap a picture of the whiteboard you want to capture.

Use the Mozy app to send the new photo to your Stash

iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) – Launch the Mozy app and go to the Upload tab. Tap the Choose from Library button, select the photo of the whiteboard and upload it. (Note also that you can take a photo directly from the Mozy app for iOS.)

Android – Launch the gallery app, tap the photo of the whiteboard, and then tap the Share button. In the Share Via list, select Mozy to upload the file to your Stash. (See “Android: Using Stash with the Mozy App” for step-by-step instructions.)

Once the photo has uploaded, the Stash software will download it to any computer you have linked to your Stash. Now you have a copy of the photo right on your computer.

Now you have a quick way to preserve your whiteboard thinking.

Bonus Tip:
The Fast Way to Find a File Uploaded to Your Stash

Here’s a handy trick: from the Stash menu, under Recent Activity, if you click the latest downloaded item, your computer will open its file explorer to show you the file. That gives you fast access to the whiteboard photo you just uploaded.

If you have other tips on ways that you put Mozy to work for you, leave us a comment. Perhaps we can feature your tip here on the blog.

More and more, MozyHome customers have been telling us that they now come to the Mozy website to access their files. That makes sense to us. People increasingly use Mozy for access to files in addition to protecting files against loss. You can use the Mozy app to get at your files from your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. And with Stash, you can use Mozy to keep your most active and important files up to date on each of your computers. Browser access completes the access-from-anywhere story. For example, if you forget to put a file in your Stash and you need it on another computer, accessing your backed up files from the browser is very convenient.

The increased interest in using the Mozy site for quick access to files has lead us to change what happens when you log onto the mozy website. From now on, instead of going to the Account Details page and having to click Restore Files (or in the case of Stash, Access Files), we’ll take you straight to your files.

You can still access the Account Home page when you need it. Just click on your name in the upper right corner and then select Manage Account.

For those who may not be familiar with accessing your Mozy-protected files through the browser, let’s take a quick orientation tour. You can match the letters of the list items to the screenshot below.

A. Account Access - Your name in the top right corner provides the menu shown above. From it, use Manage Account to access the account page that allows you to change your password, expire mobile access, or change your MozyHome plan.

B. Top tabs – Use these tabs to view your account Dashboard, access files stored in your Stash, or to access backed up files on each of your Devices.

Dashboard – The Dashboard tab provides you with summary information about your account, such as how much data you have backed up or stashed. It also lets you change the default top tab.

Stash - The Stash tab shows only if you join the Stash beta, and provides access to the files that you have put in your Stash.

Devices – The Devices tab lets you access your files backed up from any device on which you run Mozy online backup. You can instantly download a single file or a whole folder, or you can initiate a complete restore of all your files from a backed-up computer.

C. Files panel – The files panel shows on both the Devices tab or Stash tab. It lets you browse the content of folders, download items you need, recover deleted files, access a file’s version history, and so on.

D. Actions panel – The Actions panel changes according to what you have selected in the Files panel. For example, on the screenshot below, you can see that with Stash you can upload files right from the web.

E. Status summary – The status bar at bottom summarizes your current select. For example, in the screenshot I have a folder selected, so the bar shows how many items the folder contains and its total size.

If you have questions, ideas or suggestions related to this new direct-to-your-data feature or using the Mozy website to access your files, please leave a comment for us.

Version 2.18 of Mozy Backup for Windows lets you retrieve older versions of your backed up files faster than ever. Now, you can assign space for 2xProtect to store version history for files backed up to a local drive. This lets you quickly retrieve older files, rather than wait while they download. Learn more here.

Other 2xProtect Enhancements:

File permission retention*

Storage compression*

Control over space used to store file version history

*Requires NTFS

Improved External Drive Management:

Did you know that Mozy can back up your external hard drive? With version 2.18 for Windows, Mozy keeps your files even when your external drive is disconnected during routine backups. However, to ensure the latest versions of your files are backed up, we strongly recommend that you connect external drives whenever possible. View this version’s release notes here.

The understatement of late 2012, when it comes to technology: systems suffer when the environment is extreme.

We saw this, of course, in late October, as New York, New Jersey, and parts of the East Coast lost power, public transportation — and lives — during the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy.

The human toll being the most critical at such times, it can take a while for the challenges of running a small business to return to their normal focus. But later, when the sky has cleared and life must resume something of its normal routine, challenges do loom. For small-business owners, this means bringing their data infrastructure back online.

Payrolls. Repairs. Contact lists of vendors and customers — for all kinds of reasons these become more critical than ever. Has your IT core been protected? Have you lost the data that everyone relies upon to get back to bringing in a paycheck?

Let’s look at the cloud, and the role that professionals working with it daily see it playing during not only Sandy, but also future crisis events.

Data First Responders and the Cloud

“During disasters, IT teams become first responders tasked with trying to keep the business operational,” says Todd Krautkremer, vice president of marketing at cloud-network company Pertino.

Krautkremer blogged about the role of the cloud in the days after Sandy: “They often have to deal with a wide range of issues, including keeping back-up power running, physically relocating servers, and grappling with an entire workforce that suddenly needs secure remote access.”

So, hats off to the IT crews out there. But one way to avoid having to count on too few pros being in demand by too many hurting businesses during a post-disaster demand peak: the cloud.

Ensuring that your small business’s data is protected means making your data non-reliant upon geography. Think about it: if it’s not physically stored in the path of harm, restarting your business after an emergency requires only finding power and a working computer — not scrambling to find your data.

And that’s not as bad as facing the prospect of waterlogged hard drives and a wrecked set of servers. Even if you feel more comfortable storing your most-sensitive business information in-house, having a series of cloud servers to which you can migrate that material in stages as a crisis approaches, this is key to securing it from the elements.

Scaling Up, Scaling Down: Small Biz to the Federal Gov’t

The cloud’s role in disaster response and recovery is something businesses of all sizes acknowledge.

The General Services Administration saw the value of the cloud early on, says Casey Coleman, chief information officer for the federal department. As an early adopter, the GSA was able to provide access to its servers and help with emergency response and recovery during and after Sandy’s arrival in the U.S.

“GSA’s cloud conversion prevented complications from the Verizon outage, which would have led to interruptions in these services for GSA users in New York and New Jersey,” Coleman told FCW, a publication that covers the business of federal tech.

It is a problem not likely to vanish from small-business and other operators’ list of concerns. The changes that are now becoming best practices, Krautkremer blogged, are changes based in the cloud.

“One thing is for sure,” he wrote. “The sky will open-up and wreak havoc again in the future. The next time it does, SMB IT organizations can look to the cloud.”

People like laughing, and people also like apps. So when comedians/entrepreneurs Chris Duffy and Brian Perry announced the creation of Paperweight Magazine, a comedy magazine app, it seemed like a logical endeavor–not the potentially revolutionary one it might become. Despite there being a plethora of humor-inspired apps and mainstream comedy newspapers, magazines, and websites, there isn’t an app that is solely devoted to hilarious written word. This is what makes Paperweight Magazine so exciting–there is literally nothing like it.

Unlike McSweeney’s or CollegeHumor, which started as a print journal and a website, respectively, and were subsequently forced to generate tablet-friendly versions to keep up with the times, Paperweight Magazine is app-first. In fact, there will be no Paperweight Magazine website (or print version, for that matter). But this is all intentional. “The biggest advantage we see to creating an app versus a website is that it allows for more interactive possibilities,” said Chris Duffy, who is Paperweight’s head writer and editor. “It allows our pieces to have more of the reader’s focus and not resort to cheap bits to keep someone’s attention from wandering every half a second.” Even though apps are certainly the wave of the near future, Duffy did admit that “figuring out how content can be shared socially [is] something that we’re working on right now,” and could be an initial challenge.

Social sharing hurdles aside, Duffy and Perry are confident that embracing the app format will separate Paperweight Magazine from what seems to be a saturated comedy market. “We’re focused on building an app that bridges the divide between static articles and interactive content,” said Brian Perry, who is the lead developer. “We’ll have articles and cartoons, but we’ll also have pieces that could never exist on a web page or in a printed magazine. Great humor contains an element of surprise and we’re building a magazine that will surprise readers with its capabilities. It’s going to be a magazine that can talk back to you.”

But Paperweight Magazine isn’t quite a reality yet, as it is still looking to raise the proper funds via Kickstarter to get it off the ground. The good news is that the app magazine is just a week-plus into its fund-raising effort, and has already accumulated more than 79% of its target goal ($11,839 of $15,000). With 15 days to go, it’s a good bet that Paperweight Magazine will raise the full $15,000 (or more), and Duffy and Perry will finally see their dream come true.

What do the majority of small-business owners say are key points of stress in their world, in late 2012? The answer is, of course, related to how they manage money.

Nearly three-quarters of business owners polled in a recent Xero survey, 73% of them, said that managing revenue, expenses, and collecting overdue payments top the list of financial stressors.

“As a small-business owner, I am constantly in five places at once,” says Caitlin MacGregor, cofounder of Cream.hr, a hiring consultancy. What she seeks, in the way of solutions, MacGregor says, is a way of seeing big pictures and understanding the finances of the whole small business, moment to moment.

And so the trend, owners say, is increasingly the move to mobile.

Mobile Tools and Small Biz Finance

It’s not news that people use their smartphones and their tablets to check personal finances from almost anywhere, at any time.

Xero’s poll shows that almost half (46%) the mobile-device consumers it surveyed are looking at their bank accounts on vacation, and 18% of them will check their balance at the bar, or at the restaurant table.

Meanwhile, 67% of the small-business owners and operators polled say that they use mobile apps to help run their shops. And 58% of those polled describe the effect of these apps and devices: mobile makes small business operations more efficient.

How? Small-business owners are adopting the mobile finance mechanisms available to them to solve those key stressors that 73% of them describe. (Xero has a horse in this race — that’s part of why they’re so interested in these numbers. The company builds online accounting software that does the kind of things these owners are talking about, when it comes to finances and mobile apps.)
Here’s what more than 500 say about their implementation of mobile finances, in 2012.

— 33% said they check bank balances, making managing revenue the kind of minute-by-minute scenario that owners such as MacGregor say they desire.

— The expense-report problem. Some 23% of the polled owners said they use a mobile device to capture receipts. In other words, they’re submitting expense reports and the required documentation right from their phones.

— 18% are utilizing mobile tech to invoice their clients. This means, given the right apps, that they’re creating invoice documents for their customers on the spot, e-mailing it to them, and then following up on overdue statements, all from a mobile platform.

We acknowledge the sensitivities of reaching out to customers at a time like this. In addition to our attempt to reach our U.S. East Coast customers through other means, our reason for communicating in this way is the hope that through word of mouth the message will reach those who still have no access to power.

Mozy is offering free DVD restores for its online backup customers and resellers affected by Hurricane Sandy. The number to call is 1-877-MOZY411 (1-877-669-9411) and the email is restores@mozy.com.

Although Mozy never charges customers or resellers to download their data restores from the web, natural disasters often interrupt Internet access. The alternative method to restoring one’s data involves Mozy creating DVDs and mailing them directly to the customer. Mozy will absorb all DVD restore processing and shipping fees for individuals and businesses impacted by Hurricane Sandy to assist them in getting back up and running as quickly as possible.

More details:

This offer applies to Mozy customers residing in the United States of America or Canada.

For those affected by Hurricane Sandy, Mozy will pay the full cost of the media restore, including costs of the DVDs, labor, and shipping.

The offer is good for restores of up to 100GB of data.

The offer is good through December 31, 2012.

Mozy reserves the right to decide whether applicants meet the above requirements.

As part of our celebration of Movember, we’re excited to present this quick study of “Mustachios”. This infographic looks at some of the most popular mustache styles, who made them famous, and then who followed in their footsteps. Be sure not to miss out on the rest of the festivities here at Mozy, including a chance to help us donate $5,000 to the Movember cause. This cause also gives us a chance to share our favorite new Mozy feature – Mozy Stash. Stash compliments your existing back up and lets you sync files between computers and devices with ease. Please share the infographic and help us spread the word – long live the ‘stache!

Did you know that Mozy is fully compatible with Mac OS X Mountain Lion?

Beginning with the Mozy Mac Client version 2.8 in early October, Mozy now works seamlessly with OS X Mountain Lion. Now you can combine the advantages of the new Mac OS features with the peace-of-mind that comes with Mozy backup, including:

Access to any file anywhere at any time through Mozy web, mobile, and tablet apps

Confidence that your files are safe even if your local Time Machine drive fails

Premium security, optionally coupled with FileVault encryption

Download the newest Mozy Mac Client today for Mountain Lion compatibility and all the newest Mozy features and enhancements.